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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28322160">The Shackles of Samus Aran</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damselbinder/pseuds/Damselbinder'>Damselbinder</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Metroid Series</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BDSM, F/F, F/M, Kidnapping</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 17:02:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,153</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28322160</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damselbinder/pseuds/Damselbinder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a short story set a little while after Metroid Fusion, showing Samus attempting to elude more ruthless elements of the Galactic Federation, for whom - as the last source of Metroid D.N.A. in the universe - Samus would be quite the prize. I also took the chance to try to characterize Samus as I've tended to see her: an enlightened intellectual as well as a warrior. Can she elude her would-be captors?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Well, look at the title.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Shackles of Samus Aran</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>    Nights in Erresires were long. A city-state in the Northern hemisphere of the planet Alcubierre, its position relative to its world's equator was such that it received only ten hours of daylight, and nineteen hours of darkness every day. The fauna were interestingly different from those in the southern regions in that part of the world. Things were...slower. Stiller. The way of life of its people was of a more leisurely pace than their Southern, metropolitan cousins. It was poorer, too.<br/><br/>    Part of the reason for the relative poverty was the dearth of human tourists. They spent most of their time - and money, annoyingly for Erresires' businesses - in the South, in Jarrett and Haderech, which being right near the South Pole got only eight hours of darkness. The humans seemed to find this agreeable. Yet the gelth, the only sentient species native to Alcubierre, had evolved in the northernmost continent of their homeworld. They were instinctively nocturnal, even though they'd colonised their entire planet about a million years ago, so the Northern regions were held almost sacrosanct. Darkness was comforting. Darkness was sacred. Darkness was <em>safe</em>.<br/><br/>    It was for this reason that the lights in the home of Sen-Et were so low. Lamps built into the plastisteel walls let out a soft, bronze glow that for a human would have made for little more than mood lighting. But it was more than enough for Sen-Et. Their eyes were half-open, body still in a pleasant, dreamy haze. Sen-Et yawned, turning onto their back, and stretching in a decidedly feline manner. Their skin, the same soft bronze tone as the lights built into their walls, was tingling pleasantly, the bedsheets beneath them damp with sweat. The reason being, of course, that Sen-Et had just spent the last three hours having sex.<br/>    "<em>Crap!</em>" they thought, noticing the time, "<em>I have to get up for work in an hour and a half!</em>" They laughed to themselves, though laughter for a gelth sounded more like birdsong than human mirth. "<em>Oh, whatever. It's my gallery, I'll open late if I want to.</em>" They smiled, baring some fiendish looking canines on an otherwise delicate set of features. They sat up, sensitive eyes peering through to the next room over, a kind of lounge furnished with astonishingly comfortable inflatable chairs. Normal for gelth, humans went absolutely gaga for them, saying that it was like 'sitting on a cloud.' Sen-Et, therefore, was not surprised to see their companion sitting on one. She was human herself, after all - or at least she said she was. Sen-Et had never seen a human of such intense, pulse-pounding sexual beauty in their life.<br/><br/>    She was tall for a human woman, about 186 centimetres in height. Her skin was a soft, creamy colour, and though Sen-Et generally found humans closer to gelth colouration to be more attractive, they made no complaints in this one's case. Her legs were almost gelthic in proportion, long enough that, when she pointed her feet, her legs seemed to take up half her total height. They were strong, too: not muscular, exactly, but tight and hard and athletic, softer only in her trim, warm thighs. The contours of her legs flowed in gentle, smooth curves towards her hips, before tapering back into her abdomen, strong and flawlessly taut.<br/><br/>    All this tightness and smoothness and hardness had been very appealing to Sen-Et's sense of aesthetics. However, the two soft, buxom mounds of the human's bosom - a feature apparently unique to the females of the sexually dimorphic human race - had been, truthfully, a bit of a turnoff for Sen-Et at first. But something about how they complemented the lithe tautness of the rest of her body, the texture and consistency of them when Sen-Et curled their slender fingers around them that was so different from the rest of their companion's body, and her obvious pleasure when Sen-Et handled them made them now a chief part of her arresting charm. But there was nothing quite so charming on her wonderful body as her face.<br/><br/>    She had eyes of a shade of blue that Sen-Et had seen before only in the flame of a welding torch, eyes that had looked only upon Sen-Et with interest, curiosity, excitement and pleasure, but that they knew without even having thought about it consciously were capable of terrible fury when the moment called for it. Her cheekbones were not prominent, but they were high and dignified, and if Sen-Et had had this woman introduced to him as some kind of royalty, he would not have been doubtful for an instant. Her hair was all located at the top of her head, rather than forming a fine dorsal fringe like a gelth's, and was a rich, sunny yellow. Two long bangs framed her lovely features, with much of her hair tied back in what Sen-Et believed was called an 'oneytail'. She was, in a word, ravishing, and indeed she had ravished and been ravished by Sen-Et in what had been one of the best experiences of their life. Her name was Samus, a name Sen-Et had cried aloud in rapturous pleasure many times in the past few hours.<br/><br/>    "You're awake," she said, in a honey-smooth contralto. She gave Sen-Et a soft smile, lifted one of her long legs, crossed it slowly over the other. Sen-Et observed the motion with pleasure: Samus was dressed, now, but not very. Over her silky, peach-tone skin, a second skin of blue, it's thickness to be measured in <em>nanometres</em> as it held to Samus' tall, curvy frame with intimate closeness. Sen-Et's eyes couldn't actually perceive enough of the colour blue to see that Samus' 'zero suit' was a mixture of several shades of blue in a quiet nod to aesthetics of what was ultimately a costume designed for utility. The gelth could, however, see the bright-pink pattern of vaguely organic looking shapes on the upper back of the suit, part of a complex interface system which Samus had explained only very vaguely to them.<br/><br/>    "Don't get up," Sen-Et said, their voice about two notes higher than Samus'. Slipping from their bed, Sen-Et stood, resting their weight on round, padded feet, with small, clawed toes. A gelth's calves were straight, and light, their thighs thick and powerful: this was a remnant of their immediate evolutionary ancestors, who - as far as their scientists could tell - specialised in ambushing prey by leaping upwards into trees. Certainly, whenever Alcubierre's avians and tree-dwellers saw a gelth coming, they would flee at great speeds. Woe, therefore, to any would-be birdwatchers among the gelth.<br/><br/>    A gelth's torso was shaped similarly to a humans', only with a very pinched in division between the abdomen and the chest cavity, as part of a general evolutionary bias towards weight reduction in their upper body. This was to the point where they even lacked kidney-equivalents, processing waste in their blood itself, which was vastly more chemically complex than a human's. Sen-Et's arms were three-quarters the length of their legs, but this was much longer than their species' norm. Their long, strong and slender fingers, however, were very typical, and Sen-Et had demonstrated to Samus quite well their skilfulness.<br/><br/>    Sen-Et moved into the lounge where their night's companion was lying. Her hands were folded across her flat stomach, her shoulders relaxed, her expression one of thoughtful peace. Her heartbeat was so slow, her breathing so slow, that Sen-Et was surprised she wasn't dead. She was, they realised, meditating.<br/>    "Your home is lovely," she said, a note of pleasure still tinging her voice.<br/>    "Do you mean my house," Sen-Et replied, "or Erresires?" They sat in front of Samus, on a low, thufir-wood stool.<br/>    "Both," Samus replied. She sat up, the chair rising with her to support her long, slender back, softly easing herself out of her light, meditative trance.<br/>    "You're kind." Sen-Et looked around their room, adorned with mostly abstract paintings framed in bronze. "Do you like them? A-h-h-h..." Pausing, they made a breathy snarl which sounded aggressive to a human ear, but was essentially the equivalent of 'um' or 'er'. "If you'll forgive the egoism of the question."<br/>    "You made these?"<br/>    Sen-Et nodded.<br/>    "You're very skilled," Samus replied, "but then I suppose I knew that already." Her smile took a flirtatious colour, and Sen-Et gave another pretty, birdsong laugh. "<em>That</em>," Samus said, pointing at a black-and-white study of some of Alcubierre's aquatic plantlife, "I like a lot. What is it?"<br/>    "Oh, ah-h-h-r-r... it's a kind of aquatic tree."<br/>    "I don't see any leaves. How does it photosynthesise?"<br/>    "Photo...?" The two weren't speaking the same language. Both had small translator chips implanted in both inner ears, a standard practice for all who lived in the civilised galaxy. But it wasn't perfect, by any means, so Samus repeated the word in Sen-Et's tongue. She spoke it fluently, but its raspy syllables were excessively difficult for the human throat to pronounce for any length of time.<br/>   <br/>    "The tree's a predator," Sen-Et said, finally understanding. "It tricks crustaceans into trying to eat its roots. It paralyses them when they try, and eats <em>them</em>."<br/>    Samus' blue eyes were thrown open wide, her peaceful countenance thrown aside for a look of intense curiosity. "Really? It literally eats them?"<br/>    "U-h-h-h-r-r, I think so. It's not really my area."<br/>    "Fascinating." Her fingers twitched as if searching for a notepad. "What are they called?"<br/>    "Metroids."<br/><br/>    It didn't take even half a second for Samus to realise why she'd heard what she'd heard. 'Metroid' was the Chozo word for 'warrior', so doubtless 'warriors' had been what Sen-Et had said in their own language. But it was a disturbing reminder of why Samus was really on Alcubierre. It was a disturbing reminder of what she herself had become.<br/>    "Did I say something wrong?"<br/>    "No, Sen-Et. Forgive me." Samus stood up, moving with a lightness and grace that only years of heavy combat could teach. She lightly stroked Sen-Et's fringe of fine, thick fur, and was pleased by the way it stood up at her touch.<br/>    "Something's disturbed you."<br/>    "No, I... " The denial died on her lips. She knew how unconvincing it would have been, and disliked wasting words. She moved away from her alien lover to a window. She peered out of it, seeing a thick, heavy rain begin to fall. The city-state of Eserrieres was near a large lake, and she could see the surface of the water disturbed by the squall.<br/><br/>    "Do you know who I am?" Samus asked. "If you'll forgive the egoism of the question."<br/>    Sen-Et liked the joke, but didn't laugh. They'd been avoiding this issue quite deliberately. "Yes, of course. Alcubierre's not part of the Federation, but even we know of Samus Aran. We had been struggling to defend ourselves from the Zebes Pirates for a decade until you stopped them."<br/>    "I see," Samus said, weightily. "Damn. I've probably been recognised by others, then."<br/>    "Perhaps not," Sen-Et replied. "I've heard of you, but I had no idea what you looked like. I didn't think the being under that armour would be so beautiful." Instantly Sen-Et winced. They'd been trying to sound romantic, but it had come out sleazy. "<em>Ugh. Don't try so hard, you jerk.</em>"<br/>   <br/>    But Samus had hardly even noticed the compliment. Her peace was disturbed. The pleasurable haze that was wrapped around her, that had allowed her to slide into sublime meditation, was gone.<br/>    "Did the gelth ever have any cultural contact with the Chozo?" Samus asked. When Sen-Et shook their head, she went on. "A shame. Their achievements were quite remarkable."<br/>    In another tone of voice, she might have sounded resentful, but Sen-Et heard only pride in Samus' voice.<br/>    "I wield Chozo weaponry. I was raised by them." She touched the window. It was very cold, and her hand instinctively withdrew from it. "I suppose they made a 'Metroid' of me."<br/>    <br/>    It was as Samus said this that Sen-Et noticed something about her. Their eyes saw better into the infra-red spectrum than a human's, and Sen-Et could just about see some very unusual distributions of heat around her body, that did not fit the humans they'd seen before. For Samus was more than human: she had been biologically enhanced by her Chozo guardians, who had altered her to make her able to use their mighty weaponry. And not just that.<br/><br/>    There was a reason that Samus had recoiled at the name of that tree. A reason she felt uncomfortable in her own, lovely skin. A reason, indeed, that she was seeking cover in the darkness of Alcubierre, and warmth in the arms of this gentle artist. There had been an accident: she had been infected with a virulent parasite, and the only cure had been to inject her with the genetic makeup of a being that she had helped hunt to extinction, a race of terrifyingly powerful predators called Metroids. Not only interwoven with her destiny, they had become a part of her now. This was not something she would share with Sen-Et. It was not something she had shared with any personal acquaintance. But the reminder of her new nature disturbed her. It was, in her view, a bad omen that - just as she had finally vanquished the last vestiges of her hated enemy, the Space Pirates, the ones against whom she'd sworn vengeance as a little girl - she had been altered. It made her afraid that the battle was not over. It made her afraid that it would <em>never</em> be over. For she was now the last source of Metroid D.N.A. in the universe - and there were those who knew that. There were those who would seek her.<br/><br/>    She had been about to excuse herself, to return to the task for which she'd come to Sen-Et's planet where, turning around, she saw something hanging in an otherwise vacant area of the room: a wooden cross. Now that she thought about it, when she'd met Sen-Et in an uptown bar, they'd been wearing the same symbol around their neck. It seemed so unlikely that she almost wanted to laugh, but she was too curious to let it lie.<br/>    "Sen-Et... are you a Christian?"<br/>    The gelth sheepishly scratched the back of their right ear. "A-h-h-h-r-r-r, I suppose so, yes."<br/>    Instantly the concern and anxiety were gone from Samus' expression. She had the same look as when Sen-Et had explained the plant they'd drawn, that spark of childhood that the wise nurture and maintain within themselves: pure, open curiosity. "Go on," she urged.<br/><br/>    "Well," Sen-Et said, "my parents are First-Wayists. Very traditional, very strict, you see. After Sen-Hathetess - my elder sibling - entered the military I think they were angling for me to become a monk. I was an adolescent, and I wanted to throw it in their faces just how... you know, I wanted to be an <em>individual</em>. And there were some human missionaries in town, so I... started going to church."<br/>    "And you really believe in the Christian god? A personal god invented by a species who still thought they were the only intelligent life in existence?" There was no mockery in Samus' tone. Only a wish to know more.<br/>    "I... I try not to worry too much about the ontology of it. It's the ethics I like. Forgiveness. Charity. Kindness to children. Whether there's one god or three, or three-in-one or whatever it is doesn't mean too much. And the art!" Sen-Et bared their fangs again, their face lighting up as they were given tacit permission to wax lyrical on their very favourite topic. "I've seen the images from your Renaissance, that your people made in tribute to the Christian god - taking something abstract and making it so personal, so gelth! A-h-r-r-r, I mean so human, sorry - and my word some of the images of Christ being crucified, they're so vivid, so alive! And they really do go out of their way to make Jesus a bit sexy, don't they? I mean if he weren't getting nailed to a piece of wood it'd be practically <em>pornographic</em>!"<br/>    Truth be told, Samus didn't know what the Italian renaissance was. It was too far in the past, and her studies had been devoted to Chozo culture, Chozo science and art and music, though her kindly guardians had always been willing to tell her what little they knew about her people. But that wasn't much, and Samus had never even been to Earth, let alone Italy. But she listened with rapt interest, so rapt that Sen-Et began to grow embarrassed.<br/><br/>    "I... this must all sound a bit silly," they said. "You're a galactic superhero: you don't want to hear me prattle about my bastardisation of your culture's faiths."<br/>    "Even superheroes like to make conversation, Sen-Et," Samus replied.<br/>    "Yes, yes," the gelth said. "I suppose I'm just feeling a bit shy. Starstruck, you know?" As it happened, 'struck by a star' in Northern Neo-Gelthic carried precisely the same idiom in that language that 'starstruck' did in English.<br/>    "Shy, eh?" Samus took Sen-Et's hand, pressed it against her chest, then kissed it, gently. "Well I'm glad that's only just hit you now. You didn't seem shy when you had me between your legs..."<br/>    Sen-Et's hair bristled. Their wide, dark eyes flashed. "Lust trumps shyness, perhaps?"<br/>    "Perhaps." Samus knelt down, her feminine thighs bulging slightly as her calves pressed into them from beneath. Gelth did not kiss each other on the mouth - if Samus had tried it she'd have cut her tongue on their two rows of fangs - so she kissed Sen-Et on their smooth, narrow shoulders, and their short, flexible, sensitive neck. Sen-Et reciprocated, spreading skilful hands down Samus' body, gripping the two round, shapely peaches of her rear, pulling the yellow-haired beauty closer to them as they squeezed and stroked, and felt Samus' hands roving freely. But this was not, they could both feel, a buildup to another session of lovemaking. This was the sexual equivalent of an after-dinner mint, to cleanse and titillate the palate.<br/><br/>    "I should go," Samus said, brushing her cheek against Sen-Et's. "I can't stay here - in this city, on this planet - as much as I would like to."<br/>    "Of course," Sen-Et replied. "More adventure awaiting." They smiled broadly. "Thank you for tonight. You were - you <em>are </em>- remarkable."<br/>    Samus smiled. She wanted to say something affectionate, but affection was not something her warrior's life had prepared her for well. So she just said: "I'll remember this. I'll remember you, Sen-Et. Thank you for your hospitality."<br/>    Sen-Et felt the rigidity in Samus' choice of words, the awkwardness even. But they couldn't dispute their sincerity, and they gave a humble bow, touched that they had been able to leave a mark on a life that seemed to burn so much brighter than all others.<br/>______________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br/><br/>    Samus left Sen-Et's home quickly. The rain had stopped, but the ground was wet, and her footsteps made a little more noise than she would have liked. She did not regret her night's pleasure with the lovely gelth, but thinking practically she had not been sensible. She'd lingered on this world too long, and what Sen-Et had said about everyone in the civilised <em>galaxy</em> having heard of her... well, it put an urgent spring in her step. Fortunately for her, it was the dead of night, and there were few to spy on her. The bronze streetlights, affixed at regular intervals to the conical buildings that made up this portion of Erresires' Residential District Alpha, still illuminated the golden-haired warrior far more than she'd have liked. She needed to get out of the city. With that in mind, Samus quickly located the small scout rover she'd been using as a transport, a six-wheeled, sturdy affair that she was not altogether sure was road-legal in Erresires. She was about to get in, when she heard something behind her: the sound of footsteps. The sound of footsteps that were trying to be concealed.<br/><br/>    "If I valued my life," Samus called out, "and I were in your position, I'd turn the other way." She turned on the figure who was creeping up on her, attempting to conceal themselves in the deep shadows. They stopped still when they realised Samus had detected them, but after a moment's hesitation they stepped out into the light.<br/>    "I am Constable Feshh-Et," they pronounced, in a hissing, high voice. "I am a lawful enforcer of Erresires' decrees and statutes." They were gelth, but much larger than Sen-Et, almost one and a half times their height, but with shorter, thicker arms. They were wearing tight, reinforced clothing, and ornately decorated shoulder pads: a badge of rank. "I am placing you under arrest, human."<br/>    Samus slowly lowered her arms to her sides. She became otherwise very still. "On what charge?"<br/>    "I don't need to tell you that. My authority is lawful. Submit to it at once. Kneel, and place your arms on your head."<br/>    "Are you aware you're in a sergeant's uniform, <em>Constable</em>?"<br/>    "I'm -?"<br/><br/>    The sound that Feshh-Et made when Samus drove her elbow into their abdomen is not easily rendered in written form. "Ughhsshhpphhfffttkkhhhhfff!" would be the closest approximation. A simple "ugh!" when Samus crushed their knee joint with a straight, boot-heel reinforced stomp. When Samus flipped onto her hands, seized Feshh-Et's neck between her calves, and then slammed Feshh-Et's forehead directly into the pavement, they didn't make any sound at all, save that of bone hitting concrete.<br/><br/>    Samus didn't waste another second. She leapt into the rover and took off with all possible speed, hoping that she didn't catch the attention of any <em>real</em> constables as she drove off.<br/>    "Damn," she muttered. Whoever had hired Feshh-Et to try to apprehend her had been sensible enough to disguise their involvement using a proxy, but they were surely off-worlders. That only left the question of whom, and there were a great many possibilities: Zebes remnants. Human crime syndicates. The Kriken Empire. Samus had made many enemies, and even those with whom she had not crossed swords would want the Metroid D.N.A. that slept within her. There was, of course, another possibility, and it had been that which had driven her outside of the borders of the Galactic Federation. In truth, it was the most likely possibility, but it was so distasteful to Samus that she elected not to think too hard about it until she had to.<br/><br/>    Her target was the Western shore of the lake outside Erresires. The shore played host to a series of subaquatic caverns, caverns where Samus had hidden something a few years earlier. As the light of the city dimmed, and as the thick, black-leaved trees grew thicker by the sides of the road - a vast Alcubierrian answer to the old American interstate highways - Samus began to feel safer. She had never been wholly at ease in cities, a prejudice of which she was only scarcely aware, and as she sensed the increase in the mass and variety of life her anxiety dimmed. She could, to a very small extent, literally perceive the life-force of the flora and fauna in her immediate vicinity, a consequence of the lessons of her Chozo masters.<br/><br/>    She had a sudden wish to stop, to strip naked and lie in the wet, cold grass, to fade absolutely into the blackness cast by the tall, proud trees. There was in her meditations something self-annihilating, in connecting to other life one cast aside oneself. To ascend as the Chozo had done, to access the higher existence, meant in many ways an elimination of ego. It was something that called to the often-silent warrior. Peace had begun to be something she desired very deeply, with her revenge long-since achieved. But she was not Chozo. She respected, even revered, their lessons and traditions, but she did not want to forego human existence. As sublime as the joys of enlightenment were, they did not have gelth with slender hands and powerful thighs.<br/><br/>    Despite this realisation, Samus did stop. She wasn't going to lie in the grass: she was just concerned about her rover being recognisable. So she disembarked, leaving it obscured between the trees, and made the rest of the way on foot. She could nevertheless maintain a consistent pace of twenty-seven miles per hour in a straight line, thanks to the enhancements the Chozo had given her, and it did not take her long to cover the rest of the way. <br/><br/>    To reach the shore, Samus had to descend a steep hill, which bordered that part of the lake in a sharp crescent. It was shielded, therefore, from visibility from the road, leaving a wide area of sandy beach sloping gently into the water. Samus took from a small bag attached to her thigh a scanning module, and activated it. Beneath her, in a cavern whose only entrance was thirty metres underwater, something was detected by her scanner. Samus breathed a short, sharp sigh of relief: it was there. Her gunship was there.<br/><br/>    It had been between her battle on Aether against the Ing, and her climactic confrontation against Phaaze, when she had acquired a second ship. Unlike her Hunter-class gunship, lost when she crashed it after being infected with the X-Parasites, this one was geared more for atmospheric operations, and could be automatically called in to perform strafing runs. It even had a grapple beam, much like the one in her power-suit, attached to its underside. It was slower, and carried less advanced radar systems than the one she'd lost, but it was a powerful vessel nevertheless. After an...unsavoury incident involving a Galactic Federation blacksite, Samus had elected to store her ship here, as a backup, just in case it became difficult for her to seek resupply openly. It was not just a ship, but a cache of weapon microfactories, capable of producing indefinite quantities of munitions for her weaponry and repairs to her armour. With it, she could - if she curated it carefully - operate without returning to a friendly port for years.<br/><br/>    It would be a simple matter to retrieve the ship. Not only was her power suit perfectly capable of operating underwater, but with its gravity suit module, she could move as easily through water as though it weren't there. She closed her eyes for a moment to focus, the necessity of which irritated her. Once it would have taken an instant's half-formed thought to clad herself in her battlesuit. But after the alterations to her suit following the grafting of Metroid D.N.A. into her body, it had become much more difficult to change back and forth. But Samus' mind reached to the pulsing lights on the back of her zero suit, in which the compressed mass of her battlesuit was stored.<br/><br/>    Energy flowed out. A light clung to her body, poured from it. A surge of strength as the infinitely subtle matter of the suit began gently to integrate itself with her nerves. Samus' legs, her torso, her arms, were covered with nigh-indestructible metal. Her senses were widened, sharpened, broadened. She could see far further into the infra-red than any gelth, far further into the ultraviolet than any Zebesian. The light began to harden into a definite shape now: not the familiar, bulky shape of Samus' Varia suit, but the slimmer, more organic lines of her so-called 'Fusion Suit', a synthesis of Chozo alchemy and bleeding edge Federation biotechnology.<br/><br/>    When the Federation scientists who'd saved her life had originally finished work on adapting her suit, it had been a striking yellow and blue, but after Samus' absorption of the SA-X, it had taken the usual orange and yellow melange that had become her signature. A green visor covered Samus' eyes, feeding her detailed information about everything around her. She felt suddenly more awake, as her suit pumped a more oxygen rich air than the atmosphere of Alcubierre into her lungs. At her right arm, a cannon that had felled thousands of Space Pirates, Ing, Phazon-infected monsters, Metroids - all manner of horrors and eldritch terrors, all fallen at the power and skill of Samus Aran. Which made it all the more surprising when Samus' scanners detected that she was being ambushed.<br/><br/>    The dropship that landed atop the ridge that looked down onto the lakeshore was designed for stealth. It was an impressive craft: only Samus, and possibly agents from the Kriken Empire, would have been able to detect it at all. It deployed first one, then another, then another sprinted over the edge of the ridge, rapidly advancing on Samus. Figures in armour, not nearly as formidable as Samus', but still advanced, thirteen in all. The bulk of their mottled-grey armour obscured their figures and faces, but Samus could tell they were human: six men, seven women. Their stances, their movements, the way they held their rifles: they were assuredly Galactic Federation soldiers.<br/><br/>    Samus gave a long, frustrated sigh as the soldiers descended the hill, moving with a deftness that belied the great weight of their armour. Doubtless these men and women were just following orders, and were under a perfectly reasonable belief that their orders were justified. Samus would spare them if she could, and switched to her electricity-based wave-beam which could incapacitate without killing. The mercy in her heart, however, did not make her a fool. If they put her in a position where she had to kill them to defend herself, she would, and she would not blink.<br/><br/>    "Samus Aran!" A voice from atop the hill called out, harsh and strained, boosted by a megaphonic effect. Samus raised her head to see a woman standing above her, in what looked like a GF navy lieutenant-commander's uniform.<br/>    "Samus Aran, you will deactivate your armour and you will, I'm afraid, need to stand down," the woman said. "Or my little tin soldiers will do some very unpleasant things to you." <br/>    Samus' biosensors immediately gave her an array of detailed scans: the woman was between thirty and thirty-two; her hair was dyed black, but she was a natural redhead; she was exactly 160.2 centimetres tall; she had musculature consistent with someone who exercised regularly, but not strenuously; and judging by the faint scars on her round, almost simperingly small-featured, cutesy face, she had had a severe case of chickenpox when she was between sixteen and eighteen. She wore surprisingly heavy makeup for a military woman, and she wore a beret with some unusual adornments. This told Samus two things: she was vain, and she was unusually effective at whatever it was she did. For, if she hadn't been, doubtless her vanity would not have been tolerated by her superiors.<br/><br/>    "This is not a Federation world," Samus replied, not boosting her voice's volume, but hacking instantly into the closed communications system the soldiers were using. "Your presence here is unlawful."<br/>    "I'm sorry," the lieutenant-commander said, "I'm terribly sorry, butI didn't hear the words 'I surrender' anywhere in what you said. Perhaps I misheard -"<br/>    "You know who I am," Samus interrupted. "You know what I'm capable of." She was addressing the soldiers as much as their commander. "I will defend myself." She could see their heart rates increase. Many of them were nervous. Many of them were downright terrified. Doubtless one or two of them were praying that their commander would order a retreat. But she did not. On the contrary: she ordered them to open fire.<br/>   <br/>    It was when the first volley of beams began lancing towards her that Samus began to be a little concerned for her safety. The soldiers were not using conventional energy weapons, but so called 'cryowaves', fair-but-imperfect imitations of Samus' own ice-beam. Extreme cold was a Metroid's one weakness, doubtless deliberately engineered by their Chozo creators. Samus had inherited that weakness when she was transfused with Metroid biologics. They had come here knowing her weaknesses. She dodged nimbly, thrusters in her heels and her back allowing her to weave ably between their shots. But even she could not evade thirteen highly trained commandos all firing at once with no cover. It wasn't long before one of the cryowaves hit her directly in the chest. It exploded on contact, this time in an imitation of Samus' charge beam tech, covering Samus' suit in ice, freezing her in place.<br/><br/>    That is, it froze her in place for approximately half a second, before she burst out of it completely unharmed. She fired back, six rapid blasts of wave beam energy striking six of her opponents, purple sparks bursting out of their armour as they cried in pain, collapsing on the ground. Confused and now even more afraid than before, the commandos continued to fire, but Samus only pressed her attack more. Her cannon opened up four ports to widen the barrel, before she let loose a salvo of low-yield missiles, which burst out with an angry, whistling scream. The commandos deployed scrambling countermeasures, but that saved only two of them. The others were hit directly, each hard enough to cripple their armour, and do them serious injury. Three were knocked unconscious immediately, and two more lasted only a few seconds before going under.<br/><br/>    "How?!" one of the two remaining soldiers spluttered. "Commander Voskos, you said she'd be vulnerable to cold!"<br/>    Voskos, standing relatively safely on the top of the ridge, did not reply. She just watched the battle unfold with an inscrutable expression. She watched Samus take out one of the two remaining soldiers with her wave beam, and the last by clunking him over the head with her cannon itself. Voskos had been allowed to hand-pick her soldiers. Many of them were veterans from the Phazon Conflict, and all of them were battle-hardened in one way or another. One woman had defeated all thirteen of them within two minutes. One could hardly blame Voskos for turning away and moving back towards the relative safety of the dropship. One could hardly blame Voskos for yelping in fear when Samus leapt between her and her ship, and pointed her arm cannon directly in Voskos' face.<br/><br/>    "This is a sovereign world," Samus said. Her voice was calm, even relaxed. No insult to the skill of her enemies, but she had been tested much more sorely in the past. "Simply by landing here, you've committed an act of war against Alcubierre. Why?"<br/>    Voskos didn't answer. She was breathing hard, her eyes wide with fear. She knew that Samus could kill her with a twitch of her finger, and she didn't feel the need to pretend otherwise. "You weren't affected by the cryowaves," she said, in what seemed like awe. "I should have known! Such a simple trick would never work on <em>you</em>... I mean it's not as if you're a Metroid. Not exactly."<br/>    Samus' eyes narrowed slightly. She already disliked this woman. As for her cold problem, she felt no need to reveal all - or indeed any - of her secrets.<br/><br/>    "I think you know why we're here," Voskos said. She flicked a lock of hair out of her eyes. "It's because of what you are... and what you did." She tutted. "Destroying the BSL station... all that research. Now there's no-one in the cosmos who'll ever know how Metroids produce energy. There's no Metroids left anywhere in the universe. Except... in you."<br/>    "<em>I knew it</em>," Samus thought, though the discovery she'd been right gave her no great satisfaction. For years the Space Pirates had tried to unlock the secrets of the Metroid ability to produce limitless energy, and elements of the Galactic Federation had come to covet that knowledge as well. When Samus had destroyed the BSL station, she had not only enraged the ones behind its construction, she had painted a target on her back.<br/><br/>    "You know we'll just keep coming, right?" Voskos said. "Maybe not me. I failed, so I'm sure I'll be fired or shot or thrown into space or something." She gave a slightly hysterical laugh as she said this. "But eventually, someone will come for what you have. It's just too valuable."<br/>    "What will be will be," Samus replied. "But consider this: the Zebesian Pirates did not know my name. They called me only 'the Hunter'. Tell your masters that if they do not reconsider this treachery, they will come to understand why the Zebesians would shudder when the word 'hunter' passed their lips."<br/>    "Oh my god," Voskos gasped. "You really are everything you've been built up to be." She shook her head - lowering her eyes. She looked almost sorrowful. "Oh, I feel awful, just <em>awful </em>about this..."<br/>    Samus began to feel distinctly as though she were being mocked, and she lowered her cannon slightly, aiming at Voskos' chest.<br/>    "It's just so unfair. You're magnificent, Ms. Aran, and I - well, I'm about to do something very, very mean." She looked back up, looked right into Samus' opaque visor, though Samus' had a disturbing sense of Voskos looking through her. "Code Black: Thirty-forty-forty-two."<br/><br/>    Samus thought she had been shot. She jolted forward, feeling as though someone had stuck a high voltage cable directly into her back, her whole body tingling like there were pins dancing on her skin. Instantly she was aware that Voskos had - somehow - done something to her. No time to be fancy: she switched directly to her power beam, which would kill an unarmoured human immediately. She squeezed the third finger of her right hand, firing a shot square into Voskos' chest.<br/><br/>    Or at least, that was the idea. There was no shot. There was no shot, because there was no cannon.<br/>    "Wh-?!" Samus looked in astonishment at her right arm - it was glowing with a soft, orange light, spreading up her arm. And like some kind of virulent corrosive, it was taking her armour with it. The blue of her zero suit was being revealed, her enhanced senses dimming as her suit closed itself down. But it did not feel like when her suit ordinarily shut itself down: this was an alien process.<br/><br/>    But armour or no armour, Samus was more than formidable. If she could not shoot Voskos, she could still crack her jaw with a single punch. She lunged forward, as her leg armour began fading and sputtering, but she only got a few centimetres before there was another jolt.<br/>    "Aaahhhh!" Samus cried, as lightning seemed to course through her whole body. She couldn't move forward, the light spreading over her, taking away her protective, bio-metallic skin inch by inch with every second. Her muscles were frozen into a tensed state, her entire body at war with itself. "Grhhk!" Samus growled, her teeth clenching, her left hand locked into what looked like a vicious lunge at Voskos' throat. Her stomach, now, was exposed, as was most of her back. Both arms, and her shoulders were unprotected. "<em>What the hell is happening to me?</em>" Samus thought, trying to think of some technique, some skill to undo what was happening to her, but she couldn't. Her own body was betraying her, her own armour disobeying her. She couldn't explain it.<br/><br/>    But Lieutenant Commander Voskos could. "It's so unfair, isn't it? I'll bet those doctors who saved your life felt really, really bad about it, too. Surgically implanting a restraint chip into you... oh, what a terrible way to thank you for all you've done."<br/>    Samus' face twisted in shock just in time for her helmet to reveal her emotions to her enemy. "<em>The scientists who saved me... the ones who built my Fusion Suit - they did this to me?!</em>" It was more confusion than anything else that Samus felt in that moment. She understood why those in power sought the secrets of Metroids. She understood why less virtuous elements of the Galactic Federation would be willing to hunt her for those secrets. But though Samus was wise, though she was not naive about the existence of evil in sentients' hearts, she was in many ways an innocent. She had devoted her life quite unpretentiously to the service of good, the defence of the innocent and the punishment of the wicked. Such a heinous betrayal as had been inflicted on her - it would have been like if she'd snapped Sen-Et's neck in the middle of having sex with them.<br/><br/>    "Oh," Voskos gasped. "Oh <em>my</em>!" Her astonishment was not unwarranted. She had just seen Samus' armour fade away entirely, revealing Samus' statuesque body in all its curvaceous, voluptuous glory. "No, this is too much. You're <em>gorgeous</em>! I've seen pictures, but... oh, this is something else." She came closer, close enough for Samus to touch, but the hunter still couldn't move, her body fighting itself instead of directing itself against its true enemy. "Why, if I weren't a rational woman I'd say you were an <em>angel</em>, Ms. Aran. Golden hair and beauty and such strength... oh, but I'm wrong, aren't I?" She moved a little closer. She was much shorter than Samus, and her enemy's height seemed both to delight and intimidate her. Voskos' small features suddenly took on a decidedly cruel streak and, with a little giggle, she tapped Samus on the nose. "You don't have any strength at all, do you?" And, the moment Voskos said it, it became true.<br/><br/>    "Unnhh...!" Samus gasped, as a new sensation travelled through her. A sort of pulse, a throbbing at the base of her spine, travelling up her back, and down her legs, bringing something to Samus that was <em>truly</em> alien to her: weakness. Her hand, trying to grasp Voskos, relaxed. The arm it was attached to relaxed as well, and began slowly to lower. Samus' other arm did the same, slowly falling to her side. Her shoulders began to relax, her head beginning to roll as her neck muscles relaxed as well. "Nhh..." Samus could feel strength draining out of her, her muscles relaxing, and not just that - she felt <em>blocked</em>, as if her muscles were just ignoring the commands of her nerves. And then Samus' long, shapely legs began to tremble.<br/><br/>    "Oh!" Voskos gasped, clapping her hands with glee. She moved back, with rapid, inelegant steps. "Oh this is beyond anything... just beyond anything... Samus Aran is falling at my feet!" And again, what Voskos said became true.<br/>    Samus felt her legs give way. Felt herself powerless to prevent it. With a sound that was at once breathy sigh and gasp of frustration, the achingly beautiful huntress fell to her knees. "Unhh!" she groaned as her knees hit the ground, her breasts visibly shaking beneath her suit, her ponytail flying up for a moment before settling back down. Samus' arms were limp, her body both lighter than air and heavier than lead. It felt, this weakness, like the precise opposite of wearing her armour, which weighed more than a tonne, but made every movement faster, stronger. And the indignity of it: being forced to kneel like a humbled servant before this simpering fool - it was beyond aggrieving. But her indignity was only just beginning. Another pulse of weakness shot through her, and she lost the strength even to kneel.<br/><br/>    "Uhhh..." Samus couldn't stop herself. Gravity seized control of her, and she fell forward, flat on her front, bouncing slightly as she landed on the buxom cushions of her breasts. Felled like a great tree, she lay still and flat on the ground. Her long legs lay neatly against each other. Her fingers curled inwards, her breath deep and slow. Her face lay against the thick, wet grass, caressed by the thick, soft blades. "<em>My...body! I can't move!</em>" From head to toe, she was completely paralysed. Samus Aran, the mightiest warrior in the galaxy, was absolutely helpless.<br/><br/>    "Oh god, I think I'm going to pass out," Voskos said. "This is... oh, this is beyond everything." She knelt down next to Samus' tall, limp body. "You're paralysed. Oh, poor thing, you can't move a muscle can you?" She placed her hand on Samus' back, then gingerly withdrew it. "Think of all the monsters and beasties you've slain... and now it's just me and you can't do a thing!" She put her hand on Samus' back again, didn't withdraw it. "Oh, this suit is just <em>painted</em> on, isn't it?" Voskos laughed. She ran her hand down until - and Samus could not believe she was really feeling this - she had her hand on Samus' round, curvy behind. "Mhh... oh, I am sorry but I just can't resist." She squeezed tight, the pseudo-rubbery texture of the suit adding to the sense of suppleness from Samus' flesh. She moved her hand further down, over Samus' long, shapely legs. "Oh, I would just <em>die</em> if I had legs like yours..." Voskos said. "All that heroism is <em>really</em> good for your body tone, Ms. Aran!"<br/><br/>    Samus was beginning to wonder if this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. Betrayed, paralysed - and now <em>fondled</em>? It was not so much embarrassing as much as incredible. Who was this giggling fool? What half-wit in the GF military had allowed her to join up, much less be promoted to lieutenant-commander?<br/>    "Unnhhh..." Samus groaned, as she felt Voskos take her by the shoulder, and - with a grunt - turn her around onto her back.<br/>    "There now," Voskos cooed, "that's much more comfortable, isn't it? Here, let me help." Voskos slipped her hand under Samus' neck and - to the blonde's aggrieved astonishment - rested Samus' head on her thighs, cradling her. "Oh, there now... there now... poor girl..." She began stroking Samus' soft, blonde hair, apparently unaware of the look of vicious fury Samus was shooting her.<br/><br/>    "Yhh... yhh..." Samus tried to speak, but the taciturn warrior now had silence imposed on her. Her tongue and lips were as weak as the rest of her. More or less all she could do was raise her eyes, and glare her icy blue daggers at her crooning enemy.<br/>    "Oh hush, Ms. Aran, please," Voskos said, putting her finger to Samus' soft, delicate lips. "Such a beauty," she almost whispered. "Such a gorgeous, voluptuous angel... oh, and I've clipped your wings, haven't I? Brought you <em>all</em> the way down to earth." She took her finger from Samus' lips, and began moving it slowly down towards her victim's chest. She spread her hand flat, feeling the gentle rhythm of Samus' breath, her fingers spreading out to press into and grope Samus' bosom.<br/>    "Nhh...." Samus groaned, wanting to slap Voskos as hard as she could. This bitter treachery had been forced upon her - and now it was being used for <em>this</em>? It was an insult above insults. But as far as that went, Voskos was nowhere near done.<br/><br/>    "I'm sure you know how much the Galactic Federation Navy admires you. I'm sure you know how grateful we are for all you've done, how much our good little tin soldiers worship you. But... well, Ms. Aran I'm sorry to say there are people who aren't so grateful." She took her hand off Samus' breasts, took one of her wrists instead. She lifted Samus' slim, limp arm, and pressed the back of the hunter's hand against her round, dimpled cheek. "They're such nasty little bugs. They think you're a glory hound. They think that you joined the military just long enough to train with us, then left as soon as you had what you needed. They think that you should have shared the Chozo's secrets with us, should have given <em>all</em> the Federation's soldiers armour like yours: the Pirates would have been wiped out <em>years</em> ago if you had. Phaaze would have been a nuisance."<br/><br/>    Voskos entwined her fingers with Samus'. "I mean, that's what they say. I know you're in the right. I know that you <em>couldn't</em> trust us with the technology the Chozo created, that we're not <em>enlightened</em> enough yet. And you're right, you're right!" She kissed the back of Samus' hand. "But... well I'm afraid to say that some of them think you've just decided you're <em>better</em> than us. That you're so far <em>above</em> us." She lifted Samus' arm as high as she could, holding it by Samus' index finger. "Some people say you <em>deserve</em> to fall." She let go of Samus' arm, and it fell limp onto her flat, taut stomach. She couldn't move it. She couldn't move at all.<br/><br/>    "And given," Voskos said, "that you're such a beautiful woman, that you're -" She giggled to herself. "Given that you're so <em>sexy</em>... well you know how soldiers are. A lot of them have said some <em>other</em> things too. Such horrible grunts." Suddenly, she twisted her fingers in Samus' hair, pulled her head back to expose her soft throat, vulnerable and warm, then jerked it back forward again so that she could look Samus in the eye. "But the thing is, having you here, seeing just how proud and mighty you are... well I have to admit I'm starting to see where they're coming from."<br/><br/>    Before Samus knew what was happening, Voskos had pressed something over her face - a mask over her mouth and nose, clear plastic or something similar, sealing itself with light suction into place. But Voskos held it down all the same, and with a wicked glee she attached a small canister to a notch on the front, and sealed it into place. Samus heard a hiss, and tasted something strange, and realised what Voskos was doing.<br/>    "Nnhh...!" she protested, now muzzled by the mask. "Nhhh...!"<br/>    "Don't fight, Ms. Aran," Voskos whispered. "Don't fight. Just breathe nice and deeply... and have a nice, long sleep..."<br/><br/>    Samus couldn't help but breathe deeply. She had been robbed of conscious control of her body, and she tasted a bittersweet gas flooding into her airwaves, and she realised at once that she was being anaesthetised. She'd worked out immediately what Voskos wanted from her, but it had not quite dawned on Samus until now that Voskos wanted to capture her. More than that: she wanted <em>her</em>. Immediately she began to feel a different sort of weakness, a numbing, draining, warm wave that spread like a wine-stain in a white shirt throughout her body. And yet her body was already imprisoned, paralysed. This new prison was for her mind, and she could feel her thoughts becoming enfeebled. Not so enfeebled, however, that she did not groan in increasingly somnolent dismay when she saw Voskos draw a knife.<br/><br/>    She made only a single incision. As she drugged Samus with one hand, the blonde's head turning slowly from side to side in the one expression of resistance of which she was capable, Voskos made a tiny slit in the fabric of Samus' suit, right between her breasts. Then, she'd thrust her small, manicured fingers into the slit, widened it, and begun hungrily groping Samus' buxom, bare chest.<br/>    "Mmmhh... mmmhhhphhh...!" Samus protested, feeling Voskos fingers roughly squeezing and fondling her bosom, cupping them, feeling the heft of them, tearing the wound in her zero suit further open to expose completely her two ripe, naked breasts, pushing them together, feeling how they yielded, surrendered to the pressure of her fingertips, teasing Samus' pink, sensitive buds, making her moan in embarrassment and dismay and Voskos teased her, drawing her into unconsciousness at the same time.<br/><br/>    "I'm foul, aren't I?" Voskos whispered. "I'm absolutely <em>foul</em>..." She used both hands now, leaving the mask in place to continue gassing Samus, and began vigorously massaging Samus' bosom, impressing her will into her captive's body in the most brutish way possible, rubbing into her as literally as she could manage the idea that she had been defeated, and that she was going to be used precisely as her captors wished. Soon the nakedness of Samus' breasts was not enough, and Voskos roughly tugged the suit down, tearing it further, exposing Samus' smooth shoulders, her neck, her finely sculpted <em>décolletage</em>.<br/><br/>    Denuded and drugged, Samus felt Voskos' fingers roam, gripping her by her trapezoid muscles and rubbing vigorously, her thumbs pressing hard into the back of them, her fingers fanning out wide over Samus' fine skin. The hunter's vision was darkening, her thoughts slipping far from logic, but her paralysed body could still feel Voskos' grip.<br/>    "<em>Wh... why would... someone be like this?</em>" Samus wondered, drowsy and disoriented. "<em>I can't... fight back, I - but it's my duty... my... life... warrior... not a... not weak...</em>"<br/><br/>    By now, the fury was gone from her eyes. Her face had taken on a decidedly narcotised countenance, and her eyes were blinking slowly, but staying more shut than open now. The tall, proud, beautiful warrior had been paralysed, stripped, groped - and now even consciousness was being taken from her. She stopped her vain efforts to remove the mask from her face. She stopped trying to do anything at all. All she could do was whimper gently as Voskos touched her, and wonder in in an unfocused, somnolent fashion just what the hell the galaxy's greatest hero had done to deserve this from a polity she'd saved from annihilation half a dozen times.<br/><br/>    It was just as Samus was passing out completely with a long, feminine, almost musically sweet sigh, that the first of the fallen soldiers reached the ridge. Her name was Ida Li, and her armour had only just returned to a motile state after Samus' first shots had disabled it. She ascended the ridge half-expecting to find Commander Voskos dead, and certainly expecting to see that Samus was gone. She had <em>not</em> expected to see Samus captured, lying in Voskos' lap, with her suit halfway pulled down and her breasts being massaged by her Ida's commanding officer.<br/>    "Uh, ma'am?"<br/><br/>    Voskos' head snapped up. She did not withdraw her hand in shame, but slowly and unwillingly she did withdraw it. Samus was unconscious now: the taunts and cruel humiliations served no further purpose.<br/>    "Fat lot of use you were!" Voskos hissed. "How many are dead?"<br/>    "Uh, none ma'am," Ida replied. She didn't quite know how to deal with what she was seeing. "Samus seems to have been careful not to kill us."<br/>    "Hmph," Voskos grunted. She looked up, saw Carmichael and Huntley helping a third soldier whose name she honestly couldn't remember, towards the dropship. The anonymous soldier was not dead, but had been badly injured. Voskos was glad they were alive, but only insofar as it would make her look good if she could report that Samus had been captured without loss of life. She saw two more soldiers, Phillips and a woman she kept thinking was called Fitch, ascending the ridge, and they too looked unharmed. They too looked very surprised indeed to see Samus had been subdued.<br/><br/>    "How the hell did -?" Phillips began, immediately thinking that something fishy was going on. "How the fuck did that happen? We barely touched her!"<br/>    "Yours is not to reason why, ensign," Voskos replied. "Fitch, get the blonde into the dropship."<br/>    "Ma'am, it's <em>Fitz</em>, but -"<br/>    "Lieutenant," Voskos said, assuming once again her dimple-cheeked, sickly-sweet demeanour. "No contradiction. Contradiction is close to insubordination. Insubordination is very frowned upon in the military, as well you know. Now get. The. Blonde."<br/><br/>    Fitz sighed, and obeyed. Signalling for Phillips to help her, Fitz approached Samus' fallen body. She knew the mission, knew that it would come to this if all went to plan, but she still didn't like it. Nevertheless, she did as she'd been told. She and Fitz rolled Samus onto her back, the slumbering blonde meekly yielding to them. They folded her arms behind her back, and Phillips placed a thick, metal clamp, stark white, square, and glowing with electrical circuits, around Samus' wrists. It was long enough to completely cover Samus' forearms. A signal was sent from a remote at Phillips' hip and the clamp shut tight, pressing Samus' forearms together with inescapable strictness.<br/><br/>    The two soldiers sat her up, Samus' head flopping onto one of her naked shoulders, as they placed a larger, even thicker clamp just above her breasts, closing it around her torso and her arms, the metal visibly pressing into her skin, shackling her arms into place with such security that even fully armoured Samus would have struggled to escape. Around her ankles a third clamp much like the one around Samus' wrists, in what seemed like a total overcompensation given Samus' feminine frame. The last was placed around her thighs, visibly contorting the soft flesh as it pressed the blonde's long legs into one limb, binding her absolutely.<br/><br/>    Voskos watched the shackling of Samus Aran with delight. She had not just taken this assignment because she thought that Galactic Federation security relied on them mastering the secrets of the Metroids, but because whenever Voskos saw something good and pure and true she longed to violate it. She saw the torn, dishevelled fabric of Samus' suit, and the fair, pure, beautiful skin beneath she'd revealed lay beneath it, and she saw too the way the cold metal pressed into that skin, bunching in Samus' shoulders, grasping at her like too firm a lover, and she laughed. She saw Fitz lift Samus up to her feet, and swing her tall, voluptuous body up and over her shoulder and she laughed at that too. She saw the way Samus' helpless, captive posture showed off the delightful shapeliness of her behind, saw the way Fitz' armoured hand gripped the soft thighs of her lovely victim, and all this gave her pleasure too. At this point, the mission was almost incidental.<br/><br/>    The soldiers took the hero they'd captured, and brought her into the hold of their dropship. It was quite large for a ship designed for stealth, with a total internal space rivalling some corvettes. It was as grey and square and utilitarian as you'd expect. Some of the soldiers. were already having their armour unscrewed by waiting technicians, the injured soldiers being treated by the team's one dedicated medic. But no matter what they were doing, they all stopped to stare as Samus was carried past them. Some felt simple disbelief. Others felt a sense of guilty unease. A couple felt that the high-and-mighty hunter had finally got what was coming to her. But not one of them looked away, until the shackled, drugged beauty was out of their sight.<br/><br/>    Fitz brought Samus, feeling her captive's bosom bounce into the back of her armour with every heavy step, into a small cargo-hold. It was filled mostly with weapons, but there was one other thing. A large, square, black case. Phillips went ahead of Fitz, opened the case up. He revealed nothing inside but a thick, foam lining, with grooves and indents in its spongy surface that seemed designed precisely for a particular occupant.<br/><br/>    Fitz' armour made light of huge masses. By the standards of the paces she'd put her armour through before, the weight of a woman, even a six foot tall, curvaceous woman bound in heavy, titanium shackles, was as nothing. Yet she felt the weight of her. She felt every bounce, felt every contour as Samus pressed against her. It was load that burned, and she wanted to rid herself of it, as quickly as possible. So she took her leggy burden, and laid her as gently as her armour would allow her into the foam lining of the case. Samus sunk in, the weight of her shackles pushing her deeper and tighter into its confines. She fit snugly into it, her tall, beautiful body held securely but gently inside. Automatically, plastic straps burst out from the sides of the box, wrapping around her calves, her stomach, across her shoulders, making sure that she wouldn't move around if the ship was knocked about. Samus was their prize: they did not want her damaged.<br/><br/>    Fitz put her hand on the lid, ready to plunge its occupant into darkness, but hesitated.<br/>    "What's the problem?" Phillips asked.<br/>    "Nothing, I... " She shook her head. "She, ah... she saved my life once. When the G.F.S. <em>Olympus</em> was attacked over Norion. I was almost sucked out into space when a bulkhead was breached and - she raised the emergency shields and stopped me from getting killed."<br/>    "She was probably just saving herself," Phillips grunted.<br/>    "Her suit's spaceworthy. Ours weren't, not back then. I know, I know," she said pre-emptively stopping an objection. "A mission is a mission." She closed the lid, the top half fitting as tightly over Samus as its lower half had, sealing her drugged, bound and helpless into its confines. "Jesus," Fitz said. "Phillips, what the hell did we just do?"<br/>_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________<br/><br/>    A few miles away, Sen-Et was still in bed. They weren't asleep, but were dozing lazily and happily, looking out at the stars through a nearby window. The smell of Samus still lingered on their sheets, the memory of her touch still burning warmly in their mind. They knew that, in all likelihood, they would never see Samus again, but they comforted themselves with knowing that among those stars, Samus would continue to burn as brightly as any of them.<br/><br/>    For what could possibly stifle the light of Samus Aran?</p>
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